At this time of day, Virginia Hernandez, an 18-year old Humanities student at Miami Dade College, would normally be in class. But today her professor dismissed the students early, telling them they had a more important place to be: a get-out-the-vote rally at the college's North Campus.
So Hernandez and her friends are outside in the sun on this sweltering, soupy mid-October morning, for a lesson in democratic participation.
Miami Dade, one of the biggest universities in the country, is an open-admission college, meaning anyone with a high school diploma can attend. Most students are black or Hispanic, and come from low-income families.
Students on the North Campus specialise in cinematography, biology and funeral service education (there's even an on-site embalming laboratory and casket display room). The buildings are all grey concrete and harsh lines, reflecting the brutalist style popular in the 1960s.
Softening the scene are rows of palm trees and a man-made lake, a favourite place for iguanas to bask in the sun. Dozens of the creatures – some fat and orange, with spikes running down their spines; others lithe and green –luxuriate by the water. Signs warn not to feed them: they can bite.
Today is the last day to register to vote in Florida before the November 6 midterm elections, and the university is going all-out to ensure that as many students as possible get their names on the electoral roll. Making voting cool is a hard ask, but they're giving it a red-hot go: a DJ is playing Drake and Rihanna, and food trucks serve free pizza and Cuban sandwiches.
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The next challenge is convincing the students to
